Remnants
by CrimsonEbony
Summary: Past the remnants is a new start...literally.
1. Chapter 1

The drumming of the downpour against her skin felt ridiculously illusory as she entered through the familiar Konoha gates. The air was frigid, but clotted, and no matter how fresh the rain made it smell, the stench of blood was strong in her nostrils—clinging to her senses, overwhelming her.

The wounds on her had not once stopped to cause pain, the trail of blood that tailed her making it easy for anyone to trace; but since she killed all her enemies, those problems should not arise. As her vaporous and fatigued mind registered that she was in front of her apartment, she found her hands fumbling to her pocket to grope for her keys.

There was a chime of clatter, as her kunai dropped to the ground in her slowing hands, and she never saw the key. In fact, she didn't see anything after the gory kunai on the ground. Before she knew it, her knees had crumpled beneath her, sending her body collapsing on the ground gracelessly.

The last things she knew were the cold bullets of precipitation stinging her face, and her own blood seeping out of her to pool and mingle with the groggy rainwater on the ground, inches before her apartment. Lazily, she closed her eyes in capitulation to the augmenting darkness in her mentality.

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Glassy green eyes opened to bright sunshine that filtered through the thick curtains hanging from the window; the room was vivid, white colors grazing most of the objects occupying the space. White sheets, white cover, white pillow, white walls, white table stands—on which a small branch of Sakura flower stood peacefully—the only difference in color.

Groggily, Sakura dragged her lazy upper body up into a sitting position, her brain still trying to register her surroundings as well as her condition. Upon changing postures however, a dull but severe throb shot through her brain and bounced off of the inside of her eyeballs to settle all the way down her spine.

Ignoring the urge to wince, Sakura looked around. The room was strange, she thought. She knew it was a hospital, but didn't recall looking quite this way. With a hand on her head to suppress the headache, she stepped out of bed carefully, straightening up her wrinkly gown on her way down.

A few seconds later, Sakura was walking down the hall in a dazed manner, passing doors and doors, not entirely sure what she was doing—she only knew she needed to get _somewhere. _

Everything here was alienated to her, and her intestines were twisting in unreasoned fear. Fear for everything—she felt so vulnerable.

Then down the other end of the corridor came footsteps and noises. Startled, Sakura spun around to see three men. Two were her own age, the other—the masked one—seemed much older. One of the two her own age had whisker lines as a mass of blonde hair. Somehow, she registered from his vest that he was a jounin. Strangely enough though, he was grinning enthusiastically and waving to her. The one next to him was more calm, cool and collected, being coldly handsome, his dark features bored into Sakura, and a sickening streak of heart thumps rumbled through her chest.

Everything seemed too nostalgic.

Then there was the masked man, who was reading an orange book, and paying seemingly no attention to his surroundings.

When they were closer, the blonde reached out to pat her shoulder, but Sakura withdrew, as if he was holding a gun.

"Sakura-chan, should you be out?" He asked, his voice rattling her brains. When he stepped closer, Sakura found herself wincing back. "What's wrong?" He asked, more concerned.

Sakura swallowed hard to find her breath. "Wh-who are you? Where am I?"


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura frowned in fear as the group of guys continued to approach her. The blonde's voice was shaking when he spoke next.

"O-oi, Sakura-chan…?"

She took another step back, surprised at the familiarity or perhaps rudeness of him to call her "chan" upon first meeting. "Who are you?" She asked again, a little more confident now.

The blonde's eyes widened dramatically. "What do you mean? I'm Uzumaki Naruto, Sakura-chan, don't you remember?"

As much as Sakura hated to see that look of grief and sadness on the boy's face, she had to shake her head from side to side uncertainly. She hated where she was then—she loathed it all. She could feel a sick twisting in her gut, yet every time anything worth of use would cross her mind, it would flutter away out of her reach.

A breath escaped her mouth as she closed her eyes against the impending headache that invaded her throbbing temples.

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"And there's Ichiraku," Naruto pointed out loudly, ushering Sakura over to the Ramyn stand. "Is anything coming to mind yet, Sakura?"

Sakura looked around. The stools and customers seemed all foreign to her, but then again, it was hard to think when the boy named Naruto was rambling on every second she was with him. It also did not help matters that the man named Kakashi kept on staring at her intently behind her back.

It was already afternoon, but the only things Sakura could remember were still that she was a kunoichi, and that her name was Haruno Sakura.

Yet so far, she's already been introduced to more than half of the village. A busty blonde woman had checked up on her condition before she left the hospital, and Sakura deduced as much that they used to be acquainted with each other, but that was only the beginnings of the greetings.

Everywhere Sakura went, people greeted her, and she tried her best to remember all of them.

There was a lithe blonde about her height that Sakura found a strange sense of dislike upon first impressions. With her was a man with a spiky ponytail who yawned every other sentence, and commented on how she losing her memories was too troublesome for his liking. Beside him was a boy who finished three bags of potato chips in the three minutes Naruto was trying to get them to converse.

She was also taken to a family of strange looking ninjas in traditional garments. On first sight, Sakura deemed them to be blind, as they seemed to have no pupil, but it was not until she registered them as Byakugan did she realize her mistake. Scary people aside, there was a bowl-cut haired boy who nearly glomped her into oblivion when she was passing a small run-down dojo. Sakura had winced because she thought some costumed fanatic was trying to rape her, and she was quick to defend, but she apologized after Naruto told her of their previous acquaintance. She had helped pry Lee's figure out of the tree she smacked him into.

Just before the day ended, however, and when Sakura would be returned to her own apartment, she was halted by a person standing and waiting outside her door.

"Who…are you again?" She asked tentatively, not wanting to be rude if it was someone she was supposed to know.

"I'm hurt that you have no recollection of your old sensei, who by the way, wants a word with you before you turn in."


End file.
